Major corporations simply do not offer online game play on their company website … except for Toshiba that is. Their flash games site has 5 games based on a character named Tobby. In Tobby Pachi, for example, Tobby is launched Pachinko-like to higher and higher levels in an effort to rescue his girlfriend Jelly from the evil Bull.
Simple but good gameplay. In the catgeory of sprite-based games, we give it 7/10.
There’s a well-written and researched article over at Wired Magazine entitled “The Shadow Internet” describing how game and movie pirates operate.
The article describes the pirate supply chain thusly:
Producer (moles employed in the industry or in disc-stamping plants).
&8595;
Packager &8594; Distributor &8594; Couriers
&8595;
Public
The article also has a description of the security at the so-called topsites, those “thirty or so underground, highly secretive servers where nearly all of the unlicensed music, movies, and videogames available on the Internet originate”:
“The upper reaches of the network are a “darknet,” hidden behind layers of security. The sites use a “bounce” to hide their IP address, and members can log in only from trusted IP addresses already on file. Most transmissions between sites use heavy-duty encryption. Finally, they continually change the usernames and passwords required to log in.”
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As part of our low-tech gaming series, we present Quzzle. The Economist in a Dec 2nd 2004 article entitled “A hard, simple problem“, portrays Quzzle, as the world’s hardest simple sliding-block puzzle. Quzzle was developed by Jim Lewis, an inventor based in NJ. Its objective is to move one of the large tiles from one corner to another.
Quzzle’s claim was shattered a couple of weeks later, when it was determined to require ‘only’ 84 moves, and quickly superceded by Gil Dogon’s 138 move puzzle which he calls Super-Century.
The objective of Super-Century is to move piece A to the lower middle of the board.
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The Centrix MVP-100 is a new portable media player from a Korean company named SITEC, whose motto seems to be “Global 1st Networking Leader” … no idea what that means.
In any event, the specs seem ok:
20GB 1.8 ” HDD
3MP Digital Camera /w flash
3.5in LCD screen at 1280×960
Supports jpg, bmp & gif image formats
2800mAh Lithium Polymer battery
Supports AVI, MPG, MPEG, DAT, Divx & Xivd video formats
Weighs 285g at 130×78x25 mm
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The ongoing dialectic between capitalism and socialism, individualism and collectivism, left and right has been joined by a new book. The book is entitled A Hacker Manifesto. 
Author McKenzie Wark updates the Communist ethos and posits the emergence of 2 new social classes:
Hackers. They typically are researchers, authors, artists, biologists, chemists, musicians, philosophers and programmers. Hackers produce new knowledge from raw data. Hackers are exploited by and have their work expropriated by:
Vectoralists. This new classs controls the vectors along which information is reproduced and transmitted.
Wark does not intend for the book’s motto “Information wants to be free, but is everywhere in chains”, to be taken literally. Monies from MP3 downloads, for example, should flow to the Hacker instead of the Vector.
Wark also implies that Hackers should be content with less or perhaps even no money, and should view their works as contributions to culture … “the gift of one generation to the next”. Wark borrows on themes from such works as:
- The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies by Marcel Mauss
- The dotCommunist Manifesto by Eben Moglen
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We express our condolences to the peoples of south-east Asia on the loss of so many lives in this horrific tragedy.
The AFP is saying that estimates of the death toll from the tsunami triggered by the massive earthquake off Indonesia yesterday, are expected to reach 45000. More than 1000000 people are homeless.
The USGS is reporting that the magnitude 9.0 quake ocurred 255 km SSE of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia on Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 7:58:49 AM local time.
Wikipedia already has an excellent article on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
Arthur C. Clarke, the famous sci-fi writer who lives on hard-hit Sri Lanka, indicates on his website, that he is well:
I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction.
But many others were not so fortunate. For hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and an unknown number of foreign tourists, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow.
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Sharp today announced the CE-MR01 – a new audio/video streamer.
The device supports wireless streaming of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 and MP3 encoded files to your TV or stereo. The main selling point seems to be the support for the 802.11a/b/g protocols.
Seems ok if somewhat unexciting .. I’m holding out for 802.11n, which is spec’d to be up to six times faster than the g …. regrettably, 802.11n devices will not be generally available until mid-2006. Following is an image of Belkin’s pre-802.11n router with an awesome 3-element MIMO antenna array….
Happy birthday William.
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The Electrolux Design Laboratory 2004 event was held in New York City on November18th. The event was the culmination of a competition whose purpose was to solicit innovative appliance concepts for the year 2015. First prize was won by a team from the University of NSW in Australia, for their Rockpool waterless dishwasher.
The Rockpool uses supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent. The good part is that SCCO2 eliminates the need for water and detergent, and thus leaves a smaller ecological footprint.
Some concerns are that SCCO2 is not so good at removing inorganic materials, and then there’s the matter of the energy needed to compress the CO2 enough to reach its critical pressure of about 1,070 psi or 72 atmospheres.
The Graphyscaf has one odd-looking high-end fountain pen. Intended for a niche market – those who want a pen with complexity, innovativeness and uniqueness. Its main feature seems to be:
This writing instrument has been assembled from 195 separate components: 52 parts held together by 143 rivets.
Yahoo has it on sale for 25% off its regular price of $3,200.00.
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Billboard Magazine started listing the top 20 ringtones a or two month ago. Their top 10 list is available at this link, with the rest of the list only available to subscribers. This week’s top three ringtones according to Billboard are:
- Drop It Like It’s Hot, Snoop Dogg
- 1, 2 Step, Ciara
- My Boo, Usher And Alicia Keys
No word yet if they also plan a separate list of the most popular ringback ringtones.
Ovum has a good article on the ringtone business and mobile phone content and personalization in general, and how they expect the market to grow quickly. Projected trends include:
- Monophonic ringtones will be replaced by polyphonic ringtones
- Polyphonic ringtones will lose ground to Mastertone/Real/True ringtones
- Ringback tones will gain wide acceptance
- The introduction of reverse streaming video ringtones
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